Lesson learned — in the terribly, horribly, no-good very baddest way…

Watching the children of San Francisco line up to cross the street, with their brand new backpacks and lunchboxes by their side warms my heart. I remember first days of school and agonizing over outfit choices, accessories determining my entire social status as I was stuck in a plaid uniform until I was 14. How fun, I thought to myself, wishing instead of taking myself to work, I was taking myself to a whole new year of possibilities and passed notes and juice boxes.

Ah, how quickly we forget.

My grammar school nostalgia passed when I recalled a dreadful day in 5th Grade, the very day my mother still refers to as Beth’s Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

I had one of those wavy, frizzy, old lady perms because my mother insisted upon taking me to her stylist in Union Square. I’d have much preferred the Ogilvie home perm my friends had subjected themselves to.

So the perm was my first problem, one that seemed to last for years.

My second problem was that I had stepped in a puddle of urine somewhere in my morning. To tell you the truth, I can’t remember if I actually stepped in a puddle of pee or if that’s the story I came up with because something far worse had happened. Either way, I smelled like an incontinent senior.

In those days, the entirety of my allowance was spent at Longs Drugstore and for some reason, I’d gotten the bright idea of purchasing what I later came to know as an afro pick. I thought it was a really fabulous idea to have my afro pick sticking out of my perm, and most of the day was spent with this random beauty aid emerging from the side of my head.

No one, not even my mother, said a word.

During PE the day before, I had “sprained” my ankle. I was always “spraining” my ankle in sad, last-kid-at-day-care cries for help. On this fateful day, I’d wrapped my “sprained” ankle in several ace bandages, found A CANE in an old closet and wore a foam New Kids on the Block high-top bedroom slipper on the injured foot. Please take a moment and visualize.

We’ve got the perm, the pee, the afro-pick, the cane, and the NKOTB “cast.”

It wasn’t even 9 o’clock.

The worst moment of this day — worse than my teacher asking EVERYONE why I had a comb in my hair, worse than explaining the pee smell for seven straight hours, worse than being forced to play dodgeball because everyone knew the ankle thing was fake — was the Christmas tree.

Because I have always been the tallest person on the planet, I was the tallest person in 5th Grade. My teacher, having no concept of what it’s like to be a nine-foot-tall 10-year-old girl, proudly bestowed upon me the honor of writing the date every morning on the chalkboard.

My rival for official 5th Grade obnoxious smarty-pants was a kid named Patrick. And Patrick’s parents had donated a fake Christmas tree to our classroom for the holidays. As a result, Patrick and his kin were treated like the Getty’s must be treated when arriving at the Getty Museum. I believe this crappy tree event made it into the school bulletin, so the entirety of the student body and the parish would know the benevolent philanthropy of Patrick’s parents and their practical taste in seasonal foliage.

The tree, again treated as if Jesus himself had backed up his minivan and dropped it off, was decorated in the standard construction paper chains and ornaments made out of recycled Styrofoam meat trays. And this precious tree stood next to the chalkboard.

So first thing in the morning, after several awkward versions of my tale of urinary woe, I wobbled myself up to the chalkboard and started in on the date.

By the time I got to 1989, I had lost my balance.

I think you know what happens next.

If a tacky fake Christmas tree falls in a 5th grade classroom, does it make a sound?

Yeah. It does.

I might as well have single handedly destroyed the rainforest. I certainly ruined Christmas, based upon the reactions of my class and teacher. There is no way to gracefully recover from such a blunder. To silence and stares, I picked that fake tree up and balanced it as best I could. Then, with the help of my cane, I re-hung the fallen ornaments and re-attached any plastic, removable branches that had fallen off in my act of terrorism.

I then slowly returned to my seat and from somewhere deep inside, as secretly as I could, I gave my class, my teacher, Patrick, that tree and every tree in the whole stupid world the middle finger, hiding my forbidden obscene gesture under my desk.

That, folks, is what I think of when I see fresh-faced children on their way to school. I think of the tree and the cane and the pee and the comb and breathe a sigh of relief that those g–damn terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days are over.